Avenue Flo is a completely different beast. No one gets shot, you walk around a lot, and there's a snazzy theme song. And for those who are looking at the title screen and wondering why it looks so familiar, the main character is none other than Flo from the popular Diner Dash series of games. However, the "Avenue Flo" isn't named after her, it's short for "Florida". Haha! Blew your mind!

But this game is far from a time management kinda thing. Instead, it's a point-and-click adventure that has Flo running around the city trying to find objects to help her friend with a wedding that's gone awry. Everything is done with the mouse, but that's the only correlation to the Diner Dash series.

Gameplay revolves around clicking on various other characters to speak with them -- also a first: this game has full voice acting, which makes it a little more fun to play, but you can of course skip the dialogue -- to see what they need, which will in turn give you what you need. For example, at some point you'll need to grab some lace curtains hanging in the window of a friend. But you can't get at them until you help her find some missing items. It's like that.

What makes things even easier is that whenever you get some direction, like "Must find poodle", it's written into your notebook, which you can consult at any time in case you forget what it is you're meant to be doing. This is very handy, as it happens automatically, and even updates when these mini-quests are completed.

Next to the Notebook in the UI is a map that features not only the landscape you'll traverse, but also where you've been, who you've talked with, and what tasks you've completed.

And finally, the regular items finish with the butterfly net, which itself you get from another character. This net is what you'll use to collect over 30 butterflies that you must to complete the game. You'll also be picking up rather a lot of recyclable plastic bottles in your search, and these can be redeemed 15 bottles at a time for a subway token, which is how you'll get around your city.

The game also features a number of entertaining mini-puzzles. These are typically accessed when a character needs you to do something for them in exchange for the item you really want. For example, there is a bead pattern puzzle to finish that's rather fun. Given a pattern of differently-colored holes, you must place each color-coded bead as it occurs in the queue into the pattern in its proper spot. There is only one right way to do this, however, and it can become fairly challenging.

There is a lot to recommend about Avenue Flo, not the least of which is its ability to be simple and fun without feeling too easy. You can grab the demo right here on Big Download for both Mac and PC.